


Azimuth (means the direction you fly)

by Tesserae



Series: Rocket Man [1]
Category: SG-1 - Fandom, SGA - Fandom
Genre: Cars, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-03
Updated: 2007-06-15
Packaged: 2017-10-06 15:48:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tesserae/pseuds/Tesserae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two colonels walk into a bar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> No spoilers; set on Earth sometime after _Pegasus Project_. Beta by [](http://idyll.livejournal.com/profile)[**idyll**](http://idyll.livejournal.com/).

The restaurant was small, just a back room off the bar, really, and during the year it was popular enough that Henry let people eat in the bar if there weren't any tables open. Watching people eat hamburgers annoyed him, though, so when Cheyenne Mountain quieted down around Christmas, he banished them all to the back room.

"You shouldn't serve those things if they piss you off," John told him, when Henry waved him toward the back.

"They don't piss me off," Henry replied. "I like making money off 'em. I just don't like watching people eat 'em."

John pondered this for a moment and decided that asking any more questions would be foolhardy. He wandered into the back room and sat in a corner. Somebody – Henry's wife? Did Henry have a wife? – had put some effort into decorating the place, hanging little strings of white lights around the room and setting up a small tree in the corner closest to the door. John was pleased not to see any fake snow or angels flying overhead, but he thought the red candles on the tables looked festive, and liked the way the little white lights around the windows seemed to hold in the warmth.

Not that John Sheppard came here often – even for the best hamburger in Colorado Springs, it was a long drive from the Pegasus galaxy. But after his uncle's funeral there was no reason to stay in Phoenix, so he'd hitched a flight back to SGC to wait for the _Daedalus_ to leave on New Year's Day. Which gave him two more days to rattle around the Springs, feeling like a red-headed stepchild and missing Rodney and his team more than he thought he would.

Henry came back with a glass of water and a basket of bar snacks. John ordered a hamburger with extra cheese and an order of fries.

Henry scowled at him. "If you'd order the calamari you could come sit at the bar."

"I don't want the calamari," John replied. "Besides, it's Christmassy back here."

Henry rolled his eyes. "Happy fucking holidays. Everybody's out of town and I should be in Florida. You want a beer?"

"Florida's over-rated," John said. "And yeah, bring me a Molson."

"What are you, Canadian?"

John just smirked at him and didn't bother to explain. Pulling the bar snacks close, he started picking out the spicier-looking Chex and setting them on a napkin. He hated those things.

When his beer arrived, it was in a glass instead of the familiar green bottle.

"What's this?" he asked, without looking up from his pile of snacks. "I ordered a Molson."

A voice not Henry's replied: "We shipped it all to Atlantis. There's some guy threatening to go on a hunger strike or something –"

John laughed, and looked up to see Cameron Mitchell grinning down at him. So SG-1 was back in town. Cool. "McKay would *never* threaten to stop eating. Somebody might call his bluff. What the hell is this?"

"Microbrew. Breakfast of champions. Try it."

"I've just ordered dinner."

"Yeah, that's what Henry said. You'll end up on his shit list, you keep ordering those burgers." Mitchell sat down next to him and pushed the glass closer. "Try it, you'll like it."

"And you'll drink it if I don't?"

"Something like that," Mitchell said lightly, and John reached for the glass, his fingers brushing lightly against Mitchell's. When Mitchell's fingers didn't move, John looked over at him, meeting pale blue eyes and feeling his own widen in recognition of something he hadn't thought he'd be seeing here.

Curious, John picked up the glass and took a long swallow. Mitchell's eyes darkened and dropped to his throat, and when he looked back up, there was a flush staining the fair skin over his cheekbones. So, Mitchell hadn't tracked him down out of some odd Southern notion about hospitality – although he did look like he was prepared to offer John a bed for the night.

John mentally whacked himself on the head. One of these days, he _really_ needed to start paying more attention in class.

"You want to stay and have a couple fries?" He caught Mitchell's eyes, deliberately, and felt his heart rate speed up when Mitchell slid closer in the booth, letting his leg fall against John's.

Mitchell held his gaze, blue eyes gleaming. "Sure," he said. "Although I've always been more of an onion rings man myself."

John shuddered. "Too greasy. Skinny fries, lots of salt, ketchup on the side."

Deliberately, he pressed his knee into Mitchell's, then tilted his head back and drank again, wiping foam from his lips with the back of his hand before putting the glass down. Beside him, Mitchell curled his hands into fists and took a deep breath, and John was suddenly grateful for the Rudolph-pattered tablecloth that hung down into his lap.

"Mitchell…" he started to say as Henry slid his hamburger in front of him and set a basket of fries on the table between them.

"I gave you extra pickles," Henry said. "You guys want another beer?"

"Two," he said to Henry, dumping salt onto his fries and squeezing a glob of ketchup onto his hamburger. He dipped a handful of fries into it.

"God, I love fries," he moaned around a mouthful of them, and then dropped a casual hand onto Mitchell's knee and gripped it lightly, feeling the muscles and tendons flex under worn denim. Mitchell opened his mouth and closed it again.

"I - " he croaked, and cleared his throat. John smirked.

Henry picked up John's glass. "That the microbrew?"

"Yeah." Henry headed back into the bar.

Next to him, Mitchell closed his eyes and dropped his head onto the back of the booth. The clean lines of his face were blurred by exhaustion, but there was desire there, too, in the pulse beating strongly in his throat and in the fast rise and fall of his chest, and this would be _so_ easy, John thought. Stupid too, maybe, but he'd been called an idiot before. He ran one finger up the seam of Mitchell's jeans. "You on duty tomorrow, Mitchell?"

"Cam. And no, we just got back this afternoon. Sam's gonna take a couple days, go visit her – " He shut his mouth with a snap. John grinned again, wondering if anyone knew that all it took was a hand on his leg to start Cameron Mitchell babbling like McKay.

McKay. Dammit. John slammed back into himself.

"Sheppard?" Mitchell's raspy tenor held an invitation that John's dick _clearly_ wanted to say yes to, but he lifted his hand off Cam's thigh and sat up.

McKay.

Damn it all to hell.

There were forty-six hours till the _Daedalus_ left and plenty of motels in Colorado Springs, but.

_But._

As much as John wanted to see how fast he could get Cameron Mitchell down to incoherent noises, the words he did manage on the way there would be the _wrong_ ones, and the shape of his hands on John's ass would be wrong, too, and it was suddenly, blindingly clear to John, who usually missed these things, that he needed to wait for _right_.

"No," John said softly, looking out the window, where the snow had started to fall. Antarctica was the last time he – or any of them, he thought - had seen snow. From inside, through the lights, it was pretty. "I can't, I'm sorry."

Next to him, Mitchell put his hands flat against the tablecloth, his long fingers trembling slightly. A muscle jumped in his jaw, and he didn't look at John when he finally spoke.

"McKay?"

"Yeah."

"Does he – does he know how you feel?"

"No, not yet." John grimaced. "One more thing I need to do when I get home, I guess."

"You think!" Mitchell said sharply, and John winced. "Sheppard…"

"No, Cam, just - no. I'm sorry," he said again, feeling clear-headed for the first time since the news had come in about his mother's black-sheep younger brother who, it seemed, had managed to leave John something after all.

Mitchell scrubbed a hand over his face and blew out a breath. "Yeah, me too. Look, you still want that beer?"

John looked at him, considering. He hated going straight back to his quarters after missions, and suspected that the same restlessness was why Mitchell had shown up in the first place. "They got football in the bar?"

Mitchell gave him a thoughtful grin. "We can always ask."

John grinned back. He had three weeks to figure out what to say to Rodney. Tonight, he wanted another beer. "Let's watch the game, then."

They headed into the bar. Outside, the snow continued to fall.

 

::end::


	2. I'm Not The Man They Think I Am At Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heavy spoilers for _Sunday_.
> 
> Far too many months ago, [](http://idyll.livejournal.com/profile)[**idyll**](http://idyll.livejournal.com/) asked me about the conversation Sheppard needed to have with McKay.   
> Many thanks to my beta readers, [](http://aphelant.livejournal.com/profile)[**aphelant**](http://aphelant.livejournal.com/) and [](http://idyll.livejournal.com/profile)[**idyll**](http://idyll.livejournal.com/), for editing and encouragement above and beyond.

The gate room in Cheyenne Mountain was quiet when they walked through, two rows of Marines flanking General Landry, and no sign of SG1. Rodney, looking grim and starting to fray around the edges, let John drive him out to the military transport that would take him to Scotland. He didn't say anything as they watched Carson's coffin being loaded into the belly of the plane.

When John cleared his throat and opened his mouth, Rodney cut him off.

"Save it, Colonel. I know the military has a speech for these kinds of things, page 237, right after field readiness and how long to store MREs, but _I don't want to hear it,_ if that's okay with you."

Because he felt he had to, John tried again, and this time Rodney shot him a look of withering scorn and turned his back, staring up the ramp into the plane at the four Marines waiting in the shadows, at the heavy wooden casket lashed into the webbing behind them. His shoulders slumped.

John reached out but caught himself, and twisted the gesture into a nearly perfect salute.

The idling engines ramped up to full power as Rodney walked into the plane. He didn't falter, and didn't look back, and John vowed to tear that page out of the Air Force handbook once they were all safely home.

If they all _went_ home. It hadn't been a stellar year for the Atlantis Expedition, and John hadn't yet had his interview with General Landry. He was told that would wait until _Doctor_ McKay got back from escorting Carson's body back to his mother and could tell the general in person how his science team had managed to blow up the Chief Medical Officer. Afterward, Rodney might need … something, John wasn't sure what, but if _just friends_ was the price he paid to offer it, he thought he was okay with that.

*

John mailed the letters he'd carried with him from Atlantis and moved back into his old office in the Mountain, and filed requisitions and edited mission reports for three days. When he finally remembered that Rodney wasn't going to just walk through the gate, he asked Walter about borrowing a car. He thought he might go get a beer, and maybe a hotel room. Someplace with windows that opened, and a view of trees. The dry air in the Mountain was making his sinuses hurt.

The next day Walter dropped a set of keys on his desk. "It's in the third row, fourteenth from the end closest to the gate."

"Does it turn into a pumpkin at midnight?" John asked.

Walter produced a file folder from behind his back and laid it next to the keys. "Not if you sign these, Colonel. In triplicate, please." He gave John a small smile and turned to go. "Oh, and Colonel? Don't have too much fun – General Landry wants to see you tomorrow, oh-eight hundred."

"Is McKay back?" Shit – why hadn't John been told? He scrubbed a hand over his eyes.

Walter looked briefly sympathetic. "No, sir. The General said just you. And Colonel Mitchell. Something about a field training exchange for gate teams – did you get my email, sir?"

John shook his head. "No email, sorry. When did SG1 get back?"

"An hour ago, sir. It went well, I heard." Walter looked back at the door, hesitating. "Colonel – "

"What? Oh, yeah, dismissed, Walter, thanks."

John looked at his paperwork, moved it aside, and addressed himself to Walter's forms. He wondered if the bar he'd watched football at the last time was still around, if Henry'd made it to Florida yet, and realized that he was ravenous. He dropped the forms into an envelope and left them on somebody's desk with a note.

Fifteen minutes later he was in the parking lot, counting black trucks, when his SGC-issued cell phone rang.

"Sheppard." It was Rodney, his voice sounding thin over the satellite connection.

"McKay? Where are you?"

"Scotland, of course, where do _think_ I am, and it looks like I'm going to be here for a while yet. Listen, I need you to – Carson's mother -- I can't get a clear connection in the house and shit, it's raining again, and –" he trailed off, sounding frustrated.

"Rodney."

"No, really, I'm okay, thanks for asking," Rodney snapped.

John pinched the bridge of his nose. "Carson's mother?" he prompted.

There was a long silence, and John could almost see Rodney, his back hunched against the rain, pacing back and forth.

"Carson's mother," he said finally. "Carson's mother."

And John got that. He'd made enough of those visits over the years to know that it wasn't until the messenger left that the message was finally clear, as if the future could be held at bay with cups of coffee and small plates of food.

He didn't say any of this. "Do you need me to --?"

"God, no."

"Okay."

The precarious connection stretched out between them. John pressed the phone hard against his ear, catching only about a quarter of what McKay was saying: "_Sheppard … the family … so much food_ \--"

He leaned against the thirteenth or fourteenth truck and resisted the temptation to bang the phone against its gleaming hood. "Rodney. I can't --"

Rodney kept going, speaking quickly as if he was about to be interrupted. "_Family_," John heard again. "_Another week … Katie._"

Katie. "Rodney. What about Katie?"

The line was abruptly clear, and John heard a thump as Rodney dropped his head back against the wall of what must have been a covered porch. He could hear the rain, too, and thought briefly of stone buildings and cobbled streets.

"Email her for me, would you?"

"Rodney."

Rodney huffed a sigh into the phone. "Tell her I'm sorry, I need to stay another week, weren't you listening - shit, Sheppard, what do I say, they keep asking me – "

John thought about Ford, and shook his head. "McKay," he started, not sure what to say next. A moment later he heard footsteps, and Rodney's voice again, muffled as if he'd pressed the phone into his shoulder.

"Mrs. Beckett? Sheppard, I – " and the phone went dead, the screen switching back to show him a blurry photograph of a B-2 Spirit flying over a landscape he'd never seen. He folded it closed and slid it into his jeans.

Behind the mountains, the sun was going down, brushing the treetops purple and gold and casting the parking lot into shadow. There'd been snow on those same trees the last time he'd been here, heading home from another funeral he'd gone to in his dress blues because after three years on Pegasus he only owned a few pairs of pants, and no suits. People had looked at him strangely and called him "Colonel", and asked him very few questions, and afterward he'd flown back to Colorado Springs and gone out for a beer. Just like he was trying to do now.

He looked back down the row of SUVs and started to re-count, and then, feeling stupid, pulled out the keys and triggered the remote. One of the newer ones chirped at him and he climbed into it.

_GPS_, he thought, _sweet_, and made a note to thank Walter the next day.

Before he could switch the ignition on, though, there was a knock on the passenger side door. He looked over and saw vivid blue eyes, a tight white t-shirt over a broad chest, and the international symbol for "Roll down the window": Cameron Mitchell, and all the moment needed was a Christmas tree and maybe, _maybe_, John could pretend that the last six months had just been a dream.

He flashed Mitchell a grin, resisted the temptation to roll his eyes, and popped the locks.

Mitchell pulled the door open and leaned in, and John shifted slightly to face him. "McKay?" he asked, and John frowned. "I saw you on the phone, figured that – " Mitchell's voice trailed off.

"I don't know anybody here?" John asked.

Mitchell gave him an unreadable look. "Or there's nobody else you want to talk to, maybe."

John dropped his eyes and then, deliberately, let them travel up the length of Mitchell's body, taking in long legs and narrow hips in worn jeans, the faint swell of belly against the thin cotton of his t-shirt. He'd meant it when he said 'no' at Christmas, and then found himself wondering more than a few times what the _fuck_ he'd been thinking.

Some of this must have shown on his face, because when he finally looked up, Mitchell's eyes were focused on his mouth, and when he spoke, his voice was rougher than usual.

"You ever have that conversation?"

John took a deep breath and switched the ignition on. The radio came on at the same time, pouring music into the truck, horns and guitars, a slow rambling start to some song from the seventies he knew he'd recognize once the chorus kicked in. He glanced over at Mitchell, who was still slouched in the doorway, tapping out some version of the beat with his fingertips on one thigh. John remembered the feel of that thigh, denim over solid muscle, and felt himself getting hard.

"Yeah," John said shortly, and added, "sort of."

Mitchell straightened up and stepped back. "You never said anything to him."

"Nope." John shook his head, swearing when he saw Mitchell's shoulders tighten, and added, "But it wouldn't have -- Look. There's a girl, I think it's serious, and –" He blew out a frustrated sigh. "You want to get a beer, see if there's a game on?"

Mitchell lifted an eyebrow and John let his legs fall open slightly. Mitchell flicked his eyes down and back up, grinned, and swung himself into the truck. "I got beer at home," he said. "Big screen TV, too – got Sam to install it, couple months ago."

John pulled his seatbelt around himself and reached down, brushing the back of his hand against Mitchell's arm as he latched it. "You got anything to eat?"

"The TV dinners are older than the TV. How do you feel about pizza?"

John threw the truck into reverse and started to back out of the parking space. "Like I don't want to wait forty minutes," he said with heavy emphasis. Next to him, Mitchell smirked and pulled out his cell phone.

"Easy enough," he said, then turned his attention back to the phone. "Henry. Colonel Mitchell here. How's it going?… Good! … Listen, can you have a couple burgers ready to go in say twenty – ," he glanced over at the speedometer, "– _fifteen_ minutes?" He nodded, laughed, said, "Fries, right?" to John, and then closed his phone and slid it into his pocket.

John pulled the truck to a stop. "Left here, yeah?" he asked. When Mitchell nodded, he pulled out into the intersection and waited until the light turned red to make the turn. The streets were busy, brake lights stretching away in front of him for what looked like miles.

"I was thinking about that burger," he added, surprising a dirty-sounding laugh out of Mitchell.

"I bet you were. I thought about it myself, coupla times."

John rolled his eyes. "Shit, Mitchell, does that line work for you?"

When he didn't answer, John glanced over at him. Mitchell looked exhausted, the skin stretched tight over his cheekbones and the lines around his eyes etched white, even in the gold-tinged light of the setting sun. John turned the radio down and said, "Look, we don't have to – "

Mitchell dropped his head back against the seat and grimaced up at the ceiling, showing his teeth. "First off, how about you go back to calling me Cam?" John thought about what Sam Carter had said about the man next to him, what he'd read between the lines in the mission reports McKay was hacking for him.   
_  
"Jesus, he's worse than you are, Sheppard," McKay had said, sounding horrified. "He actually wants to do this stuff."_

"I want to do this stuff," John protested, weakly.

"No, you don't – you just do it in order to get to the cool stuff. And don't bother arguing – you know I'm right."  


"Secondly, it's not _the hamburger_ I've been thinking about. But if that's what you're callin' it in Pegasus these days, hey, I'm a flexible guy." He put one hand on John's thigh, and ran it slowly down the seam of his jeans, and John, who hadn't had anybody's hands on his leg in a while, tried his Lieutenant Colonel best not to whimper.

It took him six months to not say anything to Rodney, and something just short of fifteen minutes - and the promise of skinny fries - to find himself thinking about what Cameron Mitchell's hands would feel like on his dick.

He was impressed.

And Cam must have read that on his face, too, because he laughed, moved his hand back up and tightened it, and said, "Drive."

*

John finished the burger in the car, steering the truck one-handed while Cam gave him terse directions and finally sent him up a narrow street to park in front of a low-slung ranch house. He switched off the ignition but left the radio on, and put his hands back on the wheel.

"Look," he said. "I'm sorry."

Cam's hand, which had been tracing patterns up his thigh, stilled abruptly, and he reached for the door. "Shit, Sheppard," he said, and started to climb out.

John grabbed him and Cam turned, dropping his eyes to John's hand. John tightened it, not letting him go. He could feel the tendons jump and tighten in Cam's forearm. "No," he said. "_No._"

"No, _what_?" Cam asked him flatly. " 'No, it's been swell, have a nice life'? Or, 'No, I'm not actually gay, I'm just shopping'?" He paused, something sharp and fleeting darkening his eyes.

"Or is it _this_ kind of 'no'?" Cam asked, and wrapped his free hand into the collar of John's shirt, hauling him forward into a kiss that was fierce and deep and drenched in need, and that didn't end until John crashed an elbow into the steering wheel and dragged his mouth away from Cam's.

"Shit," he said, and gripped his elbow, breathing hard. Back in his seat, he glanced down – Cam was hard, as hard as he was, the line of his cock clearly visible through the jeans he wore – but when he looked back up, Cam had let a little of his mask fall back over his face. If it had been McKay, he would have had his chin in the air; but this was Mitchell, and he just looked carefully polite. And John knew, suddenly, that in the same way McKay's chin served to draw attention away from something _else_ of much greater importance, Cam was laying down a little cover fire of his own. It was there in the set of his shoulders, in the stillness of his hands, in the way he still wasn't meeting John's eyes.

John's approach to cover fire was usually to walk straight through it – the way he figured, it either _was_ your time or it _wasn't_. John reached out and cupped Cam's jaw, running his thumb over the beard stubble he obviously hadn't taken the time to remove, and thought about what it took to avoid your commanding officer after a difficult mission. He slid his fingers into the short soft hair at the nape of Cam's neck and tightened them, and wasn't entirely surprised when Cam leaned into the caress. John tilted his chin up, forcing Cam to meet his eyes.

"No," he said again. "That's not what I mean. It's not – it's not that kind of _sorry_."

Cam gave him a skeptical look. "How many kinds of sorry are there?"

John laughed and said, "Ever been married?" and closed the distance between them, his mouth gentle on Cam's. He pulled at Cam's t-shirt until it came loose and ran his hands up under it, Cam's skin warm and a little damp, smooth under his callused fingers, the muscles of his back curving easily into John's grasp. He pulled Cam closer and pressed one thumb against his nipple, and Cam gasped and deepened the kiss, making it rougher, and brought his hands up to slide them into John's hair, sending shocks of electricity straight down to John's cock.

"Fuck," John moaned into Cam's mouth, and reached for the top button on Cam's fly, palming his erection through the soft fabric of his jeans. Cam caught his breath and thrust up hard into John's hand, and John, needing skin, needing contact, needing more than the press of denim against his own dick, lifted himself in his seat and slid one leg over the console, aiming for Cam's lap. Mid-swing, he banged his knee into something that gave way with a soft click.

Very, very slowly, the truck began to move downhill. Cam swore sharply in some language that wasn't English, and John hauled up on the emergency brake and threw the transmission into PARK, and when that wasn't followed by any crashing noises or ominous tire thumps he collapsed back into the seat. Cam looked over at him, biting back a grin, and John burst out laughing.

"Well, it wasn't a bad plan," he wheezed when he could speak again.

Cam snorted. "It _sucked_," he said. "When was the last time you drove anything with _brakes_?"

"Hey, I used to have sex in the car all the time," John said.

"What did you drive, an El Camino?"

"'61 Lincoln, white, suicide doors," John said promptly. "It was my grandfather's."

Cam looked faintly horrified. "I'm not sure I needed to know that." He paused, looking down at John's hand, still wrapped in a death grip around the parking brake. "Are you trying to tell me something?" he said lightly. He flexed his long fingers, and John felt his mouth go dry.

"Um – maybe that we should go inside?" John grinned, leering at him, not sure if he was giving Cam or himself the out.

Cam hesitated, and then said "Sheppard," and the laughter curling through his deep, drawling voice went straight into John's belly. "If you are planning, anytime in the next six hours, on turning into a teenage girl again, I'll say goodnight and thanks for the ride, right now."

John let out a breath he wasn't aware of holding. "Six hours?" he murmured.

"Dry spell," Cam answered shortly, and swung the door open. He stepped out, looking toward the house John could see outlined against the towering pines, the light from its porch spilling onto a neat lawn, and smiled faintly. "You coming in?" he said over his shoulder.

John paused, then switched the truck off. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I am."

::end::

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from Elton John's _Rocket Man_


End file.
